Attention, Civil War image collectors! Damian and I (Brendan) are seeking image contributions for a planned future photographic history of Irish participation in the American Civil War. We are especially interested in period images (or postwar copies of period images) showing Irish immigrants and first generation Irish Americans who contributed to the American Civil War. This......
Later this week I (Damian) will be in Clonakilty, Co. Cork to talk to Dúchas Clonakilty Heritage about some local men, their families and their correspondence that have emerged through my letters project, Andersonville Irish Project and the Widows in the Atlantic World Project. In advance of that, Dúchas kindly shared with me the video......
Last night I (Damian) gave an update on the latest findings of our Andersonville Irish Project to the Ancient Order of Hibernians as part of their Irish American Heritage Month Programme. In it we discussed new information on the men, their origins, their service, how they experienced Andersonville and how those who survived dealt with......
Work on our Andersonville Irish Project is continuing apace, and we have now gathered important data points on many of the more than 1,000 Irish Americans we have thus far identified. One of those elements is their place of capture. In this new StoryMap, we take a tour of the Gettysburg Battlefield, exploring the locations......
As some readers may be aware from our Facebook site, I (Damian) have a new book being released this April with Louisiana State University Press, titled Green and Blue: Irish Americans in the Union Military, 1861-1865. I spent the Christmas period wrapping up the volume index and checking over the final page proofs, so it......
For any of our readers who may be interesting I (Damian) an offering a short online course- three talks over three weeks in December- on researching the Irish in the American Civil War. We’ll be discussing everything from where the Irish fought to identifying and navigating pension files and other military records. The course is......
We have a new StoryMap exploring some of the stories of the Irish at Antietam in photos and videos. So often dominated just by the Irish Brigade experience at the Sunken Road (“Bloody Lane”), Irish Americans were impacted by the fighting all over the field at Antietam. This StoryMap shares just a small number of......
While on my recent research trip to the National Archives to continue the work of the Andersonville Irish Project, I took the opportunity for a return visit to Antietam with a view to a potential future research project focusing on that battle. One of my visits was to Antietam National Cemetery. It is particularly noticeable......
Things have been a bit quiet on the site over the last few weeks as I (Damian) prepare for an exciting upcoming research trip to the United States. The primary purpose of the visit is to undertake research for the Andersonville Irish Project over the course of a week at the U.S. National Archives in......
For our latest Campfire Chat we were joined by Danny Leavy, an Offaly man who has made his home in New York. Danny has been working on building a database of Offaly people who served during the American Civil War. We discuss his work, some of the stories he has come across, and what got......